Hunt Reports

Roger Collins in Middleburg, Virginia owns several retired foxhounds—“some more retired than others,” explains his friend Liz Williams, who sent us this GPS track. Roger fitted Wicked, a Penn-Marydel female (we must use the graceful word here, lest some computer firewalls mark us as Spam!) with a Garmin GPS DC-40 tracking collar and downloaded her track, complete with statistics of her jaunt, to Google Earth with the Garmin Astro 220 base unit.

Wicked started from home (upper left) traveling in a southerly direction, found a fox, made three big loops easterly primarily clockwise, from whence her fox abandoned the open fields and struck out for the woods (bottom right). There he remained, circling countless times, Wicked doggedly on his trail. Finally Wicked broke off the chase in the area where she kept having trouble with the line and struck out for home in the most direct route available, across the creek, along the edge of a field where she broke out onto Miller Road and straight home.

The Belvoir foxhounds at kennels after exercise / James Barclay photo

With the new season just about upon us, I thought I would have a look back over the last few months and see how we have been fairing. For the first time in some years now we can honestly say we have had something like a proper summer! Having said that however, the last two days have been nothing but torrential rain, which will have put the final week or two of harvest back somewhat. In June and July we bathed in endless days of sunshine which in many ways did much to pick up the gloom from previous years.

The hound shows began and some interesting results started to appear with the usual names not having it all their own way. This clearly demonstrates that the smaller packs over here now have an increasing amount of quality running through their kennels, which is not only a real pleasure to see for many, but it shows that the interest in breeding nice hounds is now not just with a few of the larger packs. For those who have produced hounds to a high standard for very many years, it must give them huge pleasure to see the others doing so well. After all, it will very likely be their lines that many of those winning today will go back too. Those in the past who have not only bred good hounds in their work but also to the conformation of body with which to last, deserve a great deal of gratitude. On a cautionary note however it would be wise that as Masterships are likely to change all too regularly nowadays, to have someone who can oversee the hounds, their welfare, and their breeding on a regular basis is a must.

Sadly, life being what it is, and with everything going along well as it was, something had to go wrong and sure enough it was not long before the dreaded kennel cough swept through large parts of the country, with some packs suffering badly.

The midsummer fog slips unwillingly down the valley walls and deepens as it sinks into the valley floor, leaving fingers of lingering shreds in the recesses, and wisps on the branches of trees.

Much like its liquid counterpart, it flows around obstacles in its path, and moving objects leave a wake through the waves of opaqueness. So moves the fox in his daily routine, luxurious brush swaying back and forth in time with the lazy trot that carries him along, leaving his scent wafting backward in the liquid air.

In the kennel, the breeze carrying the ripples of scented air tickles the noses of the resting hounds, yanking them to their feet and sending aloft a chorus of protesting bays as they bounce along the kennel fence, begging to be set free to find the source of the scent-laden waft.

On the hill, the grazing horses lift their heads and gaze toward the kennel, knowing that hounds do not speak lightly but announce the presence of only important things. Seeing no immediate threat, they return to grazing but move closer together, ears flicking back and forth, seeking further information.

l-r: huntsman Chris Cerrone (hunting horn by Bounty), first whipper-in Annabelle Whitticar,
honorary whippers-in Ainsley Colgan (7) and Sam Homeyer (9), kennelman Jean Simpson with
Old Dominion hound puppies Feagan (front), Febe (behind left), Fever (behind right) on walk
Betsy Parker photo

What better way to introduce summer campers to foxhunting than by bringing a foxhound puppy or two on the trail ride with the other dogs and then writing it up in the form of a formal hunt report? Good for the puppies to be exposed to all the sights and sounds in the woods and good for the campers who have a fun ride and learn about hunting. All it takes is a multi-talented camp director like Betsy Parker. -Ed.

July 24, 2013, 7:30 am meet at Hunter’s Rest (site of the old Old Dominion Hounds kennels), Flint Hill, Virginia.
 
Air temp 71 degrees at first cast. BP 29.73 and rising. Breeze variable 3-6 mph from the east/northeast. Fine overcast, cool and cloudy.

Staff: Huntsman Chris Cerrone, first whipper-in Annabelle Whitticar, amateur whippers-in Ainsley Colgan and Sam Homeyer, kennelman Jean Simpson

Hunted hounds: two couple. Old Dominion Feagan, Hunters Rest Mel, Nap and Sneak. (Old Dominion Febe and Fever were left in kennels.)

The pack moved off promptly at 7:29 am from kennels, drawing east toward the Jordan River. Whips rode wide to keep young entry on track as the field jogged along the “Aiken Line” and followed Linden Lane and Redbud Lane to first covert.

“We now have twice the country and twice the membership at one-half the cost,” said Donna Rogers, MFH of the newly merged Loudoun Fairfax Hunt. “It was a no-brainer!” Good sense notwithstanding, the courtship that finally resulted in an official union of the two hunts—Loudoun West and Fairfax—lasted two years.

“We had a long engagement,” agrees Rogers. “We hunted together, we socialized together, and we became happier and happier with each other.”

Compromises were required for the resolution of many questions. Who will hunt the hounds? What will be the name of the hunt? What will be the new hunt’s colors? What days will we hunt?

“The hardest issue was that of the huntsman,” said Rogers. “If we retained either of the existing huntsmen and let the other one go, there would have been great unhappiness on the other side. We decided that the fairest to both memberships would be to start with a clean slate.”

As a result of that difficult decision, British-born Andy Bozdan becomes the first huntsman of the Loudoun Fairfax Hunt. (Click to read an amusing anecdote from Andy’s days as a whipper-in.) Foxhunting Life has already reported on the round-robin of huntsmen changes set off in part by the Loudoun West-Fairfax merger. (Click to read Huntsmen on the Move and New Huntsman at Loudoun.)

Master and huntsman Alexis Macaulay calls hounds to water at day's end / Carolyn Carnes photo

At the time that Mac and I started our pack, I had never before drag hunted. The territory I was able to secure, however, was public land, and the regulations stated, "taking of fox is strictly forbidden." While that has since changed, we have such a steady pack on the drag at this point that I hesitate to send it live. Also, we hunt on several small, privately owned fixtures that are extremely popular with the members because of the interesting terrain and abundance of jumps, and in those fixtures it would be impossible to hunt live because of the size.

In the beginning, since I knew nothing about the sport, I read everything I could get my hands on about drag hunting. I experimented with various scents and scent combinations, but the pack was light on cry, so I sought help. The hounds, which had been drafted from the Middlebury Hunt (CT) when they disbanded, were live hunters, so we had a double challenge—the blind leading the blind.

Huntsman Donald Summersgill (right) and staff with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds

As I sit and write this on the 6th of May, finally we can say we have had two days of really good weather! The sun is shining, there is not a cloud in the sky, and the birds are in fine voice. A proper English early summer’s day, which even if I say it myself we richly deserve.

However, wherever I look there are fields of oilseed rape at half the height they should be, the wheat and barley crops are as thin as I have ever seen in my lifetime, and, what is more, the weather forecast for the next day or so is for high winds and rain. The rain believe it or not is much needed even after the wettest winter on record, but the wind is something we can well do without. We have just come out of the driest April in nearly a hundred years. Never mind; I hope that you all had a good end to season and that your weather is behaving rather better than ours.

The weather notwithstanding, I think we have come out of this last season pretty well. Having had two fascinating days beagling towards the end of March with the Christchurch and Farley Hill and the Royal Agricultural College, my season came to an end with the Exmoor Foxhounds and the Devon and Somerset Staghounds at the end of April.

Radnor huntsman Joe Cassidy and hounds at Big Bend  /  Diana Rowland photoThe gray uncertain sky and falling barometer suggested that winter was not yet finished with us. Nevertheless, I had rearranged my previously planned trip to Aiken after Joe Cassidy called. Joe hunted Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (PA) for eighteen years and is currently huntsman for the Radnor Hunt (PA). This was an opportunity for me to hunt in his back pocket.

Joe had taught me to hunt hounds while I was MFH at Loudoun Hunt (VA), and he hunted with me when I carried the horn for a couple of years, making the drive with his wife Leslie and their very large dog Luca each weekend.

The meet was at Big Bend, the long-time residence of Frolic Weymouth, well-known for his immense contributions to open space conservancy. It was a Saturday meet, March 16, 2013, and as we sat waiting for the last of the field to mount and the clock to strike 11:00, Joe turned in his saddle, handed me his horn, and quietly told me that I was hunting the pack that day. I confess to a moment of stage fright, made some knuckle-head comment about strike hounds to which he replied, “Really,” and then we headed off to the first covert—a thick patch of brambles, ground cover, and trees about the size of a football field.

Foxhunting photographer Gretchen Pelham / Jennnifer Calderwood photo

Gretchen Pelham’s photos have been published in numerous magazines, in Foxhunting Life, and in our annual Foxhunting Life Calendar. After telling her I was impressed that she could juggle reins, hunt whip, and camera, she said that when she rides her own horse, she uses double reins! But, she said, the whip is useful. When taking pictures, she puts it under her leg, horn up, and hooks the reins over it. That way, she can use both hands on the camera! [Ed.]

I don’t have a picture of my whopper of a cropper in the hunt field, mainly because I was the one taking the pictures. I always hunt with my Canon 20D equipped with a 300mm zoom lens shoved down the front of my hunt coat. When I see a moment worthy of a shot I put the reins in one hand, drag the camera out, and start shooting.

 Sometimes I have plenty of time to shove the camera back down my coat before my Field Master takes off, but mostly I’ve learned to shove it down with one hand while breaking into a gallop. The coat really holds the big camera steady, and I can jump anything without fear of the camera coming out and clocking me on the chin.